Myanmar rebels repel junta push for key town

MAE SOT (Thailand): A resistance group fighting Myanmar’s military rule said on Sunday its fighters had repelled an attempt by junta troops to advance on the key town of Myawaddy along the Thai border that was seized by the rebels last week.

Reinforcements of junta forces have been trying to advance on Myawaddy for days, but were pushed back in a battle about 40km away, a spokesman for the Karen National Union (KNU), Saw Taw Nee, said.

“It is not easy to come here. They face a lot of difficulty,” he said, adding that the KNU’s forces had been “blocking and intercepting” the junta troops.

The KNU information could not be independently confirmed. A spokesman for the junta did not answer calls from Reuters.

Myawaddy was wrested from military control by a coalition of anti-junta forces led by the KNU on Thursday.

Fighting took place on Friday between the villages of Kawkareik and Kaw Nwet along the main Asian Highway 1 leading west from the Thai border, Saw Taw Nee said.

The KNU spokesman said information received from the frontline put the junta’s toll of deaths and injuries from the fighting at around 100.

“We know that they suffered a loss of one armed carrier and a military truck,” he said.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021, when the military deposed an elected civilian government, triggering protests it sought to crush with force.

Simmering anger against the junta turned into a nationwide armed resistance movement that is increasingly operating in coordination with established ethnic rebel groups to challenge the military.

Saw Taw Nee said the resistance “will take time”.

“We need to have a kind of coordination with other groups… to defeat the military,” he said.

The KNU spokesman said there were challenges working in a broad anti-junta coalition.

“We are in the process of how to negotiate, how to come together and move forward among Karen groups,” he said, referring to members of the ethnic group residing primarily in Kayin State.